Gros Morne National Park is a world heritage site located on the west coast of Newfoundland. At 1,805 km2 (697 sq mi), it is the second largest national park in Atlantic Canada. The landscape holds many rock formations with deep valleys, waterfalls and fjords, stark cliffs, and curving beaches of white sand, secret coves, mossy bogs and wide stone barrens, mountains topped with arctic-alpine tundra where arctic hare, woodland caribou, and rock ptarmigan live and a vast natural rock garden of northern flowers flourish. Gros Morne National Park surrounds seven small coastal communities. These communities began around the early 1800’s as migratory fishermen and their families decided to over winter in this area after the fishing season rather than returning to their homes in other regions of Newfoundland, France and England.